A Spiritual Seattle Tourrette

As I sit sipping on my steamer soy with a shadow of hazelnut, still blurry eyed from crossing time zones and removing myself from the close relationship I encountered with the equator only days before. My mind and consciousness are in a constant state of disarray. I ponder as I stir my rye flakes while they become this coagulated mass of gray nothingness on the end of my spoon. I sigh knowing that my digestion needs to be moving forward rather than being in a moment of stagnation from the third world foods, which have poisoned my immunity year after year.

Damn. Why can’t I snap out of this? I look outside where a short time ago the sun greeted me like a long-lost companion and healed me with its light. Today, I put my sunglasses on in anger while tightening the belt around my leather jacket. It’s 7 am northern Pacific Time. Shit, just days ago it was 9 pm in Bangkok, and the moon was my sun. Angry at the light, I laugh knowing that in time my body will again beat in unity with the lunar and solar without anger and resentment.

Trying to center myself I close my eyes and remembered why I came home; this also displeases me. Irritated, which is a state I’m not accustomed to. I feel myself becoming sour like the ones sucking on their triple short Americanos, with a cell phone that I shoved up their ass as they flew through a red, nearly missing that elderly woman on the curb. Damn Bellevue chicks in their SUVs. God, I hate cell phones. Again realizing that I am suffering from a Spiritual Tourettes Syndrome, I retch. What have I become, this pagan-Buddhist in a land without a country?

Proud to be an American, are you? As I sit and have these non-responsive conversations with self, I realize that my lips are moving as well as projecting sound. “What?”, I say to the man in a three-piece suit. “You are my medication, love, for this spiritual Tourettes I so suffer.” I laugh and chug down my luke soy and a gray lump of gag, and I do, which triggers my hard drive with a memory of my mother force-feeding me cold mash potatoes. Every time. Who enjoys solidified lard at age 7?

I struggle with the fact that these strangers disturb me, so detached, inhuman, cell-phone using Barbie Dolls with their sugar daddy pimps.

I asked my divine teacher who gave me my ministry degree months ago,

“Am I blasphemous for saying, ‘Fuck’?”

“No my dear, even God says ‘fuck’.”

Sickly, that settled me somehow, as if that gives me license to ramble with profanity.

With deep disturbance, I pick up my parcels and head off to my place of higher education. “Have any change?” a punk ass kid says to me in his sharp looking Adidas jumpsuit with a Mack daddy hat. I roll my eyes in disapproval. “Honey, I was just about to ask you the same question”, and I continue down the street. Flashing back to the memory of the children in the streets of Siam, I shudder at the comparison, or lack thereof. “Sorry dude. Until your cheeks cave in with malnutrition and your hands bleed from your uncle’s farm. Piss off.” Feeling confused about my reaction, I continue on. It’s a deprivation of spirit that leads me to give. There are times that I will give to a kid with polished shoes and Tripoli hat– without judgment. But today I feel bitterness with an uncomfortable resentment towards the materialism that we kill for in the West. It’s like Seattle, you fall in and out of love…

Money is fucked. Of course, we need it for survival. We create what we need; we manifest it out of nothingness. Let me rephrase by saying: Our need for money is fucked. I shake my head at myself, unsure about this new persona. What has become of me? My submissive, take-it-in-the-ass side? I’m pissed. Without a doubt. Simply pissed off.

To continue this day has become my paradise in hell. As I settle around the familiar toxins and pitches of my surroundings it brings to me the sense of belonging. This warms me in a haunting way. I fumble around to arrange my belongings and in walks miss thing. Now, I feel as if I am back. I smile at myself in remembrance of how her tight little body amuses me so, her Pat Benatar fuck-me doll look, and the tight “worn” jeans bought with her daddy’s platinum card. In disgust and intrigue, I envy. She amuses me. I sit within this mother-earth archetype, with my eyes pawing at her behavior only realizing that she is only four years my junior. She walks with loose hips like a panther in heat. I know the game; I’ve played it. She walks up to her professor as he tries desperately to remove his eyes from her protruding nipples in her infant-sized “Danzig” tee. Bless his heart for trying, I laugh to my self as I put a tea bag in my heated thermos. I laugh at P.B thang– that is my pet name for her. Many times in many ways I see her question her intelligence and it puzzles me, for she is far more brilliant than most. I am pained by the fact that her nipples protrude more than her brain cells. But I see her. And her game… we all play it.

As she walks through the classroom the young women stare in disbelief and envy as they tug on their sweatshirts, and run their hands down their custom-sized jeans. We all watch her; man, woman and child. And this all happens on a Pioneer Square Saturday night!

So after the hormone waves settle and the testosterone levels return to normal, my professor clears his throat in a most obvious and uncomfortable way as she gives him a little devil-slut smile. The kind that leaves you wondering if more than his eyes are probing her young tainted flesh.

I shake my head and ponder as I hold my teacup, hating the fact that everyone is in skirts, shorts, and tee shirts when I am freezing my ass off. Coming from a temperature of 118 degrees with 100% humidity to a blasted 69 degrees (which I know being a Seattleite is quite warm and comfortable). I tug my scarf closer around my throat and tighten the belt of my leather jacket. I let out a sigh with a Cheshire grin. “Another day in paradise”, I cast in a whisper. Realizing that this is my third day without sleep and dreams, I say out loud with a gentle grunt, “Jet-lag sucks”.